


Bury My Heart (Next To Yours)

by Meduseld



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Feelings, M/M, Mentions of their canon fucked up childhood, Motel, Porn with Feelings, Richie&Bev's epic friendship, Top ten pictures before disaster, now or never
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 06:02:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16057046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Richie, Eddie, a motel room and the beginning of the end.





	Bury My Heart (Next To Yours)

Richie’s lying on his back on the lumpy mattress, staring at a ceiling stain in the murky half-light.

He can’t decide if it looks more like a goblin from _Labyrinth_ or a gremlin from _Gremlins_. It’s his frame of mind. Being back in Derry is like being back in the eighties, a jump start cable shock that makes him feel all of thirteen again, coltish and awkward.

The motel doesn’t help any, just as stuck in the past as the rest of the town.

They don’t even have key cards, but honest to God _keys_ , made from the kind of metal that leaves your palms feeling coated in something unpleasant.

They’d all exchanged glances – _Can you believe this shit?_ – at the ugly reception desk, topped by ancient Formica so scratched it’s changed color and surrounded by moldy puke-green carpet.

Mike had smiled thinly, his place so small he couldn’t put them up even though it hadn’t stopped him from offering, and then left them to their bad luck, five rooms laid out in a row in the squat beige building with the parking lot in front.

“Nothing like a little no tell, amirite?” he’d said with a dramatic eyebrow waggle. Only Beverly had laughed, short and sharp.

He’s thinking of her now, looking at the light streaming through the crack where the door and the floor don’t quite meet. Some instinct, which had tasted like all his childhood memories, had told him to leave it unlocked and he’s waiting, now.

Richie’s pretty sure that it’ll be her, looking for the simple comfort of sleeping next to someone she knew both loved her and would not try to stick a hand down her pants.

But when the door opens, it’s Eddie shadowed in the doorway.

He’s still soft and pale, a ghost of the boy he was decades ago, from what little Richie can see of his bare arms and legs, in just a t-shirt and underwear.

It strikes him as strange, Eddie is the kind to have monogrammed Gucci _pyjamas-not-PJs_ , the kind that come with buttons and a shirt pocket.

Something frozen moves down his tailbone, whistling _It could be a trick_ or maybe _IT could be tricking you_.

But when he moves inside, shutting the door behind him, the fact that it’s him settles with bone deep certainty inside of Richie. It’s the absolute way he knows things sometimes, and always in relation to the six kids he grew up with.

“Hey, lover boy” he says, joking the way he always does to cover the fact that he’s actually deadly serious. His palms itch, aching for the way he’s never actually felt Eddie’s skin.

In the faded darkness surrounding them, he sighs, a sound so Eddie it’s like a kiss. Then he slips into Richie’s bed like he belongs. Which he does, not that he has any cause to know it.

Eddie’s hands are cold where they touch, light and careful like they’re stealing at the pharmacy, and his thigh is downy soft when Richie reaches to pull it across his own. They fit.

He could laugh, or cry. To stop himself he runs a hand down Eddie’s side, the cotton soft and worn, clearly having lived at the back of his closet for a while. He wonders what else made it into Eddie’s End-Of-The-World suitcase.

He wriggles against Richie’s side, huffing in a way that’s half annoyed, half delighted. “Still ticklish, Eds?” he whispers, half drunk on how they’ve curled together.

“Don’t call me that” Eddie says, then runs a finger along Richie’s jawline, making his mouth go both desert dry and oil spill slick. “Y’know people will say we’re in _lo-o-ove_ –he half sings– if they saw you come in here”.

They wouldn’t and probably couldn’t, practically speaking, Eddie would only have had to cross Beverly’s door before getting to Richie’s.

“She wasn’t in there” he says, reading Richie’s mind. “Huh. So what d’you figure. Bill or Ben?”

“Both” Eddie shrugs against him. _Go Bev_ he thinks because yeah, it fits. She deserves the party, to fiddle while Rome burns and all that. If only for a little while.

And then Eddie presses a tiny kiss to the edge of his chin. “Do you really want to talk about them?” he says, in that voice he hasn’t heard since high school, the one that says _I’m trying to sound like I don’t give a fuck but I’m terrified._

“Oh Eddie” he can hear himself say and then they’re kissing, like that’s the only way they can get any air in their lungs.

They’ve never done this before and somehow Richie’s in mourning already. They’ve lost so much time.

But Eddie’s with him throughout it, fingers teasing the edges of his jaw like he can’t believe it’s all really happening either.

And then one of his hands moves down to Richie’s, moving along the small of his back, gliding along the soft sliver of skin between his shirt and underwear, like they have a mind of their own.

His hand pulls Richie’s down, down, down and when he twitches his fingers Eddie moans in his mouth.

He’s already so slick, so ready. He must have done it himself, all alone in his motel room, thinking about Richie.

It hits him like a thunderbolt, making his cock jump. It was already straining against the waistband of his sweatpants, but now even that thin line has become unbearable as a barrier between them.

His fingers try to be everywhere at once, inside Eddie and ripping off his probably-less-sexy-than-Richie-feels-it-is-underwear. _No wonder he was underdressed_ , he thinks deliriously, skin already red hot, pulling his own pants down and steadying Eddie’s hips.

His movements get especially clumsy between Eddie’s legs, trying to solve all the mysteries conjured there by his fevered teenaged imagination. It’s a bad fucking angle but he can’t help himself, want to grab on with both hands and hold tight.

Eddie fixes it, the way he always does.

With an impressive shimmy that leaves the all the male and female strippers that Richie has ogled over the years in the dust, he gets naked from the waist down and straddles Richie, pulling at his shirt like it’s a personal offence.

He doesn’t have time to think _aw shit_ before the cool air hits his skin like a tongue and Eddie whispers “Oh, Richie”.

He’d gotten his first tattoo at 17 with a fake ID, a scratchy anarchy symbol sloppily inked onto his forearm, and fallen in love. But now, spread under Eddie like a willing sacrifice, he feels suddenly shy about them.

Like a baseball bat cracked over the head, he realizes that there’s more to them than he thought. There’s a quote from one of Bill’s books on his arm, the winding red flame on his ribs that he’s just now realizing is really for Bev, like the chickadee is for Stan.

But that’s not the one that Eddie’s talking about.

Huge and right over his heart, because Richie apparently knows himself better than he thinks he does, there’s a carefully and tastefully inked version of the fucking _Flying Spaghetti Monster_. It was funny at the time.

“Eds” he says “I can explain–” and then Eddie’s tongue is in his mouth, moving like a living thing. He can taste the words on his lips, the sheer joy and terror of finding each other and realizing they were walking in the dark woods together all along.

Then Eddie shifts, bringing himself down, and the world turns to white noise. Eddie’s hotter than the sun, enveloping him completely.

But it’s the tiny little noise he makes when he settles fully on Richie’s hips that rip into the heart of him.

That’s when he knows he’s never really done this with anybody before.

He couldn’t, there’s no one that could touch him like this. Inside of Eddie, as he’s clenching his fingers on Richie’s chest, he knows that this is the only real love he’s ever really known. Ever felt, in every way.

It makes him scramble to catch up, hands bringing down Eddie’s sharp hips, tongue reaching out to steal the sound from his lips.

Eddie’s hands twine in his hair and it’s like smiling, it’s so easy. Nothing but skin and warmth and the taste of the boy he’s loved his whole life long.

They move in the world’s oldest rhythm like they’ve been practicing for years, and somehow Eddie’s body feels brand new and more familiar than his own at the same time.

For the first time since he’s gotten back to Derry, the air feels breathable, hot and welcoming. Eddie licks into his mouth like a sigh and wraps his arms around Richie’s shoulder, clinging for shelter in the storm they’re making. Richie moves inside of him as best he can, putting his mouth everywhere he can reach.

When Eddie seizes up in his arms it’s the best thing he’s ever felt, skin going tight at the wet heat between them. He finishes quietly, panting into Eddie’s hair.

They go down together, trying to get comfortable without separating. He can’t tell which of them makes the more pathetic sound of loss when Richie finally slips out. It gets them moving, the sudden cold, to finally get underneath the covers.

Richie is careful to cover Eddie, trying to put everything in the motion, wanting to make him feel warm and safe, the way he isn’t. The way they haven’t been since they came back to Derry.

Then Eddie’s head nestles into the crook of his shoulder and something in his chest settles.

“Hey –Eddie whispers– say something nice at my funeral”.

Richie doesn’t say anything, too busy trying to breathe through the sudden knife in his throat.

“I mean it, no dick jokes or, or stupid stories. No baby pictures. Something nice” he says, a little louder.

And Richie’s been avoiding the knowledge that Eddie won’t ever leave Derry alive. Because he couldn’t.

Beverly had never said but he knew the truth anyway. She’d hadn’t seen all of them standing there at the end, ringed in the hideous glow of the dead lights. Because they’d all known, somehow, that Eddie and Stan would have to die at ITs hands, one way or the other.

They had been marked by IT, their fate as inescapable as their bodies. Richie thought of the deep furrows of teeth on Stan’s face. The hysterical tears.

His hand, on its own, moves beneath the covers and seeks out the scar on Eddie’s arm. The long red line, uneven from the cold steel pins they had to put in him.

On his chest, Eddie’s palm lays flat, calm as still water. Underneath, Richie’s heart is pounding.

But there was the ghost of his breathing on the bare skin of his shoulder, strong enough to reach the far pasta tentacles of the monster. Still here, for just a moment longer.

“I’ll say that I love you” Richie says, almost whispering.

He swallows, throat dry.

“Eddie, you know I mean that” he adds.

Eddie’s lips brush his forehead, softer than a kiss: “I know”.

There was more to say. There always would be. But there wasn’t time, even if they’d had until the sun grew cold.

 In the darkness, they pressed close, and slept.

**Author's Note:**

> So I started this fic all the way back in October of 2017, but it refused to move beyond Eddie slipping into Richie’s bed. That Bev-Bill-Ben line was the last bit of dialogue to be written, until IT Part 2 went and cast my dream actor for the role of Eddie: James Ransone. That’s when it got kicked back into gear. 
> 
> No disrespect to Bill Hader but in this fic Richie is played by [Danny Sexbang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Avidan), who is age appropriate and fits my view better. 
> 
> [Labyrinth](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091369/) and [Gremlins](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087363/) are classic eighties movies, released in 1986 and 1984 respectively; IT was set in 1988 so you can imagine the boys watching them together. 
> 
> I don’t know why I was so dead set on Richie having a [Flying Spaghetti Monster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster) tattoo (beyond his love for Eddie Spaghetti) but [there are plenty out there irl](https://www.tattoodo.com/a/2017/07/sinners-in-the-noodles-of-flying-spaghetti-monster-tattoos/). He has all the Losers on his skin somewhere, but the others got cut for time. However I do want to add that the [black-capped chickadee is the Official State Bird of Maine](https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/maine/state-bird/black-capped-chickadee). 
> 
> When the line for the title popped into my head I was sure it was from a poem, and probably E. E. Cummings. Google tells me it’s actually from [a Mumford & Sons song](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mumfordsons/ghoststhatweknew.html) I have no memory of. So suggested listening for this fic is actually [Goddamn Lonely Love by Drive-By Truckers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WGu7dEjPsg). 


End file.
